Private organizations have paid more than $740,000 to send the Bay Area’s voices in Congress on scores of trips all over the world since the start of 2000, records show.

Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, took 40 such trips at a cost of $159,650, topping the local list and ranking 10th out of 639 current and former lawmakers surveyed by PoliticalMoneyLine.com. The data comes from the clerk of the House of Representatives and the secretary of the Senate.

Of Miller’s 40 trips, 22 — worth a total of $139,790 — were funded by the Aspen Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public-policy think tank bankrolled in large part by philanthropies such as the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation, as well as by many wealthy individual donors.

The Aspen Institute has spent $3.58 million on congressional trips since Jan. 1, 2000 — more than three times as much as the next-biggest spender on congressional trips, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent $1,032,038.

Per its Web site, the Aspen Institute’s mission “is to foster enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Throughseminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values.” Although nonpartisan, it has tended to spend more on Democrats than Republicans, about a 70-30 split.

Among Miller’s Aspen-funded trips were Prague, Czech Republic, for an August 2000 conference on U.S.-Russian relations; Grand Cayman Island in the British West Indies for a January 2001 conference on U.S. policy toward Cuba; Florence, Italy, for a May-June 2001 conference on the convergence of U.S. national security and the global environment; Helsinki, Finland, for an August 2001 conference on U.S.-Russian relations; Punta Mita, Mexico, for a January 2002 conference on Islam; Barcelona, Spain, for a May-June 2002 global environment conference; Lanai, Hawaii, for a January 2003 conference on U.S.-Chinese relations; Montego Bay, Jamaica, for a February 2003 education-reform conference; and Cancun, Mexico, for a February 2004 education-reform conference.

Miller, the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s ranking Democrat, e-mailed a statement praising Aspen’s substantive, thoughtful programs, which have produced valuable policy initiatives such as teacher-quality provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act he co-authored.

There’s “an enormous difference” between Aspen’s trips and the kind of travel that has raised corruption allegations against certain members of Congress, he wrote.

“The public is right to be concerned about members of Congress taking golf trips to Scotland with lobbyists like Jack Abramoff that have absolutely nothing to do with the public interest and are in violation of rules prohibiting lobbyist-paid travel,” Miller wrote.

“But there is an important role for legitimate foreign and domestic travel that fosters bipartisan policy discussions geared toward solving serious public policy challenges.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, ranked second among local lawmakers and 29th among the 639 surveyed, taking 48 trips worth a total of $113,364 since the start of 2002.

Of those, 36 trips worth $49,712 were within the continental United States; one such domestic trip was a $9,900 trip to New York City, funded by Glamour magazine, so Lee could present a constituent — Oakland Realtor Oral Lee Brown — with one of the magazine’s 2002 Women of the Year awards.

Lee’s other travel included an $11,000 trip to Cape Town, South Africa, for a November 2004 transatlantic conference, paid for by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the South African Institute for International Affairs; a $10,600 fact-finding trip to Cairo, Egypt, in March 2005, funded by the American Arab Chamber of Commerce; a $9,600 fact-finding trip to India in January 2004 funded by the Confederation of Indian Industry; and a $7,600 fact-finding and educational trip to Taiwan in January 2001 funded by the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce.

Nathan Britton, Lee’s spokesman, noted much of the expense was for trips — like the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand — related to her role as the most senior Democratic woman on the House International Relations Committee.

Also a Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair and Congressional Black Caucus Whip, Lee works on policy ranging from poverty to the war in Iraq “and travels to learn first-hand about policy issues and to represent her constituents and Congress in policy forums,” he said.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, came in third among local lawmakers and 35th on the list of 639, taking 30 trips worth a total of $103,191 since the start of 2000.

Of those 30 trips, eight — worth $46,789 — were on the dime of the International Management and Development Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that analyzes international economics and trade. IMDI’s president is former Rep. Don Bonker, D-Wash., who also is a lobbyist.

Spokeswoman Lynne Weil noted Lantos is the House International Relations Committee’s ranking Democrat. “If people want a member of Congress to come to them, and they aren’t in his district or in Washington, then his choice is to travel on their dime or on his own,” she said. “In these cases, it makes sense he would’ve taken up the invitation.”

(Click here if you are unable to view this photo gallery on your mobile device) The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek celebrates the life of its founder Ruth Bancroft who died at 109 on November 26, 2017. The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a nonprofit public dry garden that was planted by Mrs. Ruth Bancroft in 1972 and was opened to the...